Where indeed? We can set aside scenery and ask something more important: sleep. Homes aren't where we live, but also where we sleep.

This is where I think my MMO and single-player experiences diverge. In single player games I tend to be in worlds I could live in. Stalker, Fallout, Half Life; these are all worlds where I could live. I could scavenge and scrape by and have some fun doing it.

I could never sleep in those places. Like in I Am Legend, I imagine myself trying to huddle in the bathtub while scary things shriek around me. Normally I'd go shoot them, but it's been a long day and I just want to sleep.

For me, sleeping means huddled under blankets from the cold. I don't like summer much because of that: too hot. But winter, winter is wonderful. I can open a window and be nice and cold, or I would be if not for my pile of blankets and quilts. So if I need a world to sleep it, it better be cold. World of Waarcraft had some cold at first: Winterspring and Dun Morogh. Then came Nothrend and snow, snow everywhere. Glorious. Welcome to the endless winter!

Unfortunately, Northrend was also filled with Scourge and was therefore not much a sleeping spot. Thankfully, Guild Wars 2 has a nice collection of zones with a lot of snow and nary an animated corpse in sight. Wolves and owls don't worry me.

Beside the necessity of snow, there must be peacefulness at night. Indeed, there is peacefulness there. Not like those awful post-apocalyptic zones filled with bloodsuckers and zombies making noise all the time.